


of shame

by adelfie



Series: Of Steel [1]
Category: Reign of the Supermen (2019)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23353024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelfie/pseuds/adelfie
Summary: “A new emotion. Despite having the knowledge of a boy his physiological age, emotions were still sometimes new.”Or, the scene in which Lex Luthor threatens to kill Superman’s clone for not being good enough.
Series: Of Steel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679659
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	of shame

**Author's Note:**

> (10/10/2020 Note: I wrote this back in March and actually gave this a nice polish and revised it! So brand new version, here you are!)
> 
> Reign of the Supermen is a movie that I’ve sometimes think about randomly. Multiple times a day. Because of Superboy. I watched this scene from the movie where Lex takes him to the basement/laboratory and was like, oh ho ho ho ho ~ the feels ~  
> And that’s why I wrote this! :D (If you need more context about this scene, I added a note at the bottom!) I hope you enjoy!

What should have been obvious by now only sunk in on the way up the elevator, away from the familiar laboratory in which he’d been born… no, not _born_. Cultivated. It sunk in as the professor’s terrified screams replaced the sound of his futile attempts to save himself with a small gun.

It was one of the times that the boy wished he didn’t have super-hearing.

“Still can’t keep his mouth shut,” Lex mused, lips curling.

The boy didn’t say anything, never more friendly with unease than he was right now. The professor’s — no, he’d had a _name_ — _Dr. Donovan’s_ words prior to the monsters attacking him still rang in the boy’s ears, pleading with Lex to save the boy’s life.

_His_ life. His. The boy didn’t even know what was happening when Lex had pulled out the syringe with the green fluid.

_It just needs guidance, please. We got so much closer with this one, than any of the others._

The boy curled his hands into fists, but left them hanging by his sides. Lex had been all too blasé about allowing — _conducting_ — a murder, and now his legal guardian was silent besides him as the elevator rose. The boy knew why. It was to amplify the threat, to send home the message that Lex wasn’t above getting rid of those who weren’t good enough.

_Oh, you’re right, Dabney,_ Lex had said with a tone lighter than air, as if deciding the boy’s fate was like picking between a tie of deep scarlet or royal purple for some fancy charity gala. Or choosing between pizza or Chinese takeout. _The current model really is leaps and bounds ahead of its brothers. I don’t know what I was thinking._

Then he’d tossed the glass syringe of green fluid aside. As it shattered against the dark laboratory floor, the boy could hear the sound of every single shard and the snap of the long, sharp needle.

There had been a moment of relief, the boy could recall, that reflected in Dr. Donovan’s eyes. And then Lex had sicced the boy’s ‘brothers’ on the professor. The failed clone experiments.

In the elevator, something was prickling inside of the boy’s chest. Ah. A new emotion.

Despite having the knowledge of a boy his… _physiological_ age, emotions were still sometimes new. Something to experience, identify, and then forget about, because who cared? But this time, something was different. It was obviously nothing like the awesome bubbly feeling he got being asked for autographs and selfies from starry-eyed cute girls, but it wasn’t the same as getting his butt handed to him by the Eradicator at his own press conference, either — _that_ , he recalled with a spike of lingering annoyance, had made him angry. But it was still short-term stuff.

Whatever _this_ was, it felt as if it had been a long time coming. For the first time, rather than shooting back a sarcastic retort or cracking a joke like he normally did whenever Lex was on his case, the boy kept his mouth shut and wished he could go somewhere no one could find him. Somewhere away from everyone’s eyes. 

Somewhere _isolated_.

The elevator finally stopped, opening its doors to Lex’s luxurious condo, hundreds of feet away from the horrific killing of Dr. Donovan down below in the laboratory. The floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the far wall of the living room revealed the ever-changing sky, colors twisting and the deep blue taking over as the sun set. The mood was sour, though.

“Very well, then,” said Lex.

The boy had walked into the living room, but looked back when Lex didn’t follow. His legal guardian’s hand dropped into a pocket, and for a brief moment, the boy thought the man was going to pull out another syringe. He faltered, brain going blank with panic.

But all Lex did was pull out his cell phone, barely casting the boy even a glance.

“I have a meeting to get to. There is a _lot_ of work to get down. We’ll talk later.”

The elevator doors closed, and the boy watched the number above the doors drop down to the main floor.

_I told you I gave you more,_ Lex had said meaningfully, back down in the laboratory. _All of Superman’s strength, plus, all the Luthor intellect. Supposedly._

“Supposedly,” the boy muttered under his breath, crossing the living room.

After all, he was pretty dense for it to have taken this long to realize that Lex was the wrong person to be giving his allegiance to. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket and stared out the windows at the city. 

He was supposed to be the new Superman. He was supposed to be able to see the lines between good and bad. And Lex… the boy withheld a shudder at the thought of Dr. Donovan’s fate. Lex was the bad guy here. Any way it was cut, it was clear that the man’s ideas of good and bad and wrong and right were screwed up — that much had sunk in.

And yet the bothersome new emotion continued to prick at him. It stirred around in the boy’s chest, stubborn as he tried pushing it down. Knowing that there was a biological link had only made it worse. The way Lex had _looked_ at him in the laboratory, eyes full of unmistakable disgust and disappointment, had burned him despite his invulnerability, in a way that refused to heal.

And then the name came to him — to the boy who wasn’t the Superman he’d been designed to be — and the knowledge downloaded into his mind supplied him with context. It was the emotion that every child felt when they’d let a parent down.

Shame.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t watched it or need a recap, basically Lex Luthor made a teenage Superman clone with some of his own genetics and is basically is his guardian and father but treats him like a tool and not a person and is a pretty bad papa to him! :( *frowns at Lex for being rude to my son* So then Lex continues to reprimand the clone for not being good enough, and basically threatens to terminate him! *flips table just thinking about it* And this is all before Superboy had a real name, so I left him nameless on purpose *sips tea* that was a literary choice
> 
> Thanks for reading! :D Let me know what you think?? :)
> 
> (10/10/2020 Note: If anyone is interested, I made a tumblr! It's [adelfie](https://adelfie.tumblr.com/), if you want to say hi. I gush over DC comics and the animated universe a lot!)


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